Jen,
The Beach Stone Curlews (Esacus giganteus) are more common up north but are getting rare at the southern end of their range. It should be the other way round if AGW was real.
We travel and camp in these sorts of small boats.
Jim (Sandy Straits, Queensland)
“ROSE Robins (Petroica rosea) love to winter at our place on the western side of the Darlington Range in the south-east of Queensland. But come spring and they are off like a rocket to the Lamington Plateau or the New England Ranges to nest.” Jim Inglis
IN Canada’s remote freezing Northwest Territories, near the diamond mine of Ekati, a black raven follows ice road trucks. A youtube video has been made of the bird’s antics which include surfing the turbulence created by the big rigs.
Yesterday at the Sydney Writers Festival, I heard Eva Hornung, author of ‘Dogboy’, the story of a child who grows up with wolfs in Moscow, talking about animals and our relationship with them. She suggested that the divide between humans and animals is much closer than popular culture suggests and that we humans have a “vested interest” in suggesting otherwise.
I was also interested in a comment she made that we cannot have a completely “right relationship” with animals – it was in the context of domesticated dogs being necessarily submissive in character in order to coexist with humans. It is probably also impossible for humans to have a completely “right relationship” with nature?
[Read more…] about Ravens, Right Relationships and Ice Trucks
WHEN nutrient rich water flows into Lake Eyre it is considered good for the environment, but when nutrient rich water flows into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon it is considered bad for the environment.
Indeed every time that Lake Eyre in central Australia floods, our oh-so-sensitive-to-nature journalists provide us with the sort of happy purple prose that we see on the front page of today’s The Australian, where Jamie Walker says:
“The torrents that swept down the swollen Georgina and Diamantina rivers, mixing in Goyder Lagoon before surging through Warburton Creek and into the lake proper, carry a bounty of new life: nutrient-rich sediments to feed the thirsty native vegetation that has erupted all around it, and in turn herbaceous native rodents; fish for the mass of birds tracking the flood; all the water the wild camels from the Simpson Desert can drink.”
Meanwhile, every time it rains hard enough in north Queensland for rivers to flood into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, which represents precisely the same phenomenon as the Diamantina feeding Lake Eyre, journalists at The Australian provide us with much lamenting and concern like the following:
“A MASSIVE surge of polluted water has spewed onto the Great Barrier Reef following heavy rains that hit north Queensland last week, environmentalists say.
The WWF estimated up to one million megalitres – enough polluted water to twice fill Sydney Harbour – entered the reef after a monsoon brought drenching rain to north Queensland.
Mr Heath said satellite imagery confirmed water flows travelled to mid-shelf…”
Nature herself simply doesn’t care about the big environmental impacts and changes, no matter how much birthing, killing or (from our perspective) environmental degradation they may cause – it’s all just part and parcel of being a dynamic planet.
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Cathy has a PhD and lives in Far North Queensland.
The photograph of the pelicans was taken by Jennifer Marohasy below the Torrumbarry Weir, Central Murray Valley, in October 2007. Pelicans (Pelecanus conspicillatus) can be found in coastal and inland Australia – where ever there are fish. Some fishermen say that when there are floods on the land there is bounty in the sea.
“Gone Fishing” is an expression we use here in Australia to let people know that a business is closed for a period of time while the owner takes a break.
I’m off for a bit – “Gone Fishing”. Cheers,
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The photograph is of a pelican near Ingham, North Queensland, taken September 29, 2008.
This is a Tawny Frogmouth chick that fell out of its nest and ended up on the slasher the other day. Its mum did a great job and it fledged successfully, to our great relief.
The Tawny Frogmouth is fairly common and “nests” at our place every November. The nest however is virtually non-existent but they mostly use the same dubious spot each year so the eggs and chicks [1-3] live on the verge of oblivion.
We usually get a couple of families.
They have very soft, penetrating, low frequency calls which sound like a distant power house … ooom, ooom, ooom.
It’s great to lie in bed and listen to them.
They’re better than cats at cleaning up rats and mice and are absolutely ghost-like in silent flight.
The lapwings pass, mince through the grass,
The frogmouth chicks look down
And teeter on oblivion,
While mother wears a frown.
Jim Inglis
Australia
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
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